<Begin Segment 20>

TI: The other thing I wanted to touch upon was the Issei Concerns, Keiro. And you were one of the founders of this. And I wanted to ask you, what made you get involved with this, with this effort?

TO: Well, for me personally, of course, my wife said, "Gee, these Isseis are having a tough time." That kind of put the idea in my head, but several things. I think I was at the Blaine Methodist Church, I was representative to what we called Nikkei and Christian Community, and that was a Christian community, Japanese Christian churches that got together to talk about different problems. And I think that was about the time that the Boeing company was laying off a lot of people, and a lot of our people were getting laid off. So that was one of the common issues that we talked about. But then, Reverend Kono, he was a counterpart organization that, I don't know what they called it, but Japanese-speaking group, they met, they were meeting periodically. He was the president of that organization and he came to our meetings. He said our Issei, we'd have a problem, so we should do something about it. That kind of got the idea in my head, yeah, okay. And then it was, for some reason, when I was Commander of the Nisei Vets, we decided that we should go visit our (gold star) parents and do whatever we can for them. So at that time, Mark Fugami was my First Vice and I was the Commander, we went to visit this gentleman that was in a nursing home. And I don't remember what the name of it was, but right across, north of Virginia Mason Hospital there's a nursing home there. It was a three-story building, the first floor was offices and the upper two floors were nursing home beds. But when we went, got there, we just, was ready to go up the elevator and this guy came down and asked if we had some change, this Nisei. And we all dug in our pockets and gave him whatever we had. And we went up to see his dad visit him. And he said, "Well, when my dad hits that call button and holds up a coin, then the staff might to see what his problem was. Oftentimes, they just ignore him." And that really upset me. Here's a guy that gave his son to his country and that's the way we're treating him? We got to do better. So that's what inspired me to do something.

But I kind of, I'm somewhat religious in some ways. And I think what happened thereafter was I think the Lord had something to do with this. Because it just so happened my daughter in Los Angeles was working for the Keiro nursing homes there. And she introduced me to her bosses, Edwin Hiroto, that's the CEO of the Los Angeles, and I got to talking to him and he said, "Well, yeah, I'll help you if you guys want to do something." So I came back and I talked to Tomio, Tomio and I got together for a few drinks. And we had gone to the Imperial Drum and Bugle Corps, they would have their banquets, and they'd invite the JACL president, the commander of the vets, and that's how I first got to meet Tomio. And after the banquet, we went in the bar and we talked about this a little bit. He agreed, "Let's do something together."

TI: And about what year was this?

TO: That would be about 1970 or '71, '71 or '72.

TI: Okay.

TO: That was when I was Commander.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.